Telecommunications networks are used by providers (users) to transport telecommunications signals to subscribers and other destinations. Telecommunications networks include network elements (NEs) that are logical entities. The NEs include one or more physical devices or “blades.” The NEs are connected to enable telecommunications between terminals. The blades can perform a variety of tasks, such as switching to pass telecommunications to another blade or NE. As another example, a blade can transport telecommunications to a destination such as a telecommunication subscriber's home or office. As a further example, a blade can switch individual light signals onto separate paths to separate destinations. As a further example, a blade can monitor the telecommunications traffic of other blades and assign tasks to the blades.
One type of NE is a physically aggregated NE. In a physically aggregated NE, blades are connected through a backplane of a chassis of the NE. The chassis has a number of physical slots that can each receive a blade. An aggregated NE allows a telecommunications provider (or user) to simply plug in a new blade when it is desired. For example, a user may wish to provide telecommunications to a new destination or additional telecommunications to the same destination. The user may wish to replace a damaged blade or a blade that is not working. To replace a faulty blade in a physically aggregated NE, the user may simply remove the faulty blade from its physical slot and insert a new blade in the slot. Because a slot may be provisioned for a certain task, the blade can quickly begin operation upon plug-in.
Although replacement of blades in physically aggregated NEs is quick and simple, physically aggregated NEs have drawbacks. Because the blades are connected to a physical chassis of the NE, the number and arrangement of blades are limited to the physical slots of the NE. A physically aggregated NE is also limited to the resources in the blades, allocating discrete tasks to each blade.
In a disaggregated NE, tasks can be separated, meaning that hardware in one blade and software in another blade can be used to execute tasks. A disaggregated NE therefore allows optimization for performing tasks by using the subsystems best suited to perform the task. A disaggregated NE is logically aggregated, and blades may be interconnected by cables instead of at a backplane. Another benefit of disaggregated NEs is that a system using disaggregated NEs is efficiently scalable, supporting a pay-as-you grow model. A user of a network architecture using disaggregated NEs can expand incrementally to handle increases in traffic. A physically aggregated NE may be limited in that a discrete amount or amounts of hardware must be added at any one time to expand the system, providing large telecommunication traffic capacity that may be expensive and initially unneeded. Network architectures with disaggregated NEs therefore can provide cost efficiency in scalability. Additionally, different blades can have different form factors and power requirements. But network architectures with disaggregated NEs may be disadvantageous in that new or replacement blades in disaggregated NEs are more difficult to install or commission. Because the blades are, for example, interconnected by cables it may be difficult to add a new blade. A user cannot simply slide a new blade into a chassis and continue operation. A blade may have unique configurations using particular software or certain hardware components. In prior systems, plugging a new blade into a disaggregated NE requires steps similar to deploying a new NE. For example, there may be no physical slots that are provisioned to have a blade operate immediately upon plug-in. The complexity of deploying a new NE may exceed the quick plug-and-play of a new blade in a physically aggregated NE. Additionally, the numerous cables in a NE may add complexity to determining whether a blade has been connected to the wrong cable or a wrong blade has been connected to a cable.